It’s not always darkest before
the dawn. Just last
night, the dark came
early and spread
its thick blanket over house
and land. But, soon
the moon peeled back
the dark. Tossing
silver light on frost-covered ground,
the bright, full moon
happily stayed
to greet the day.
JDG
The learned mathematician
summed up the need
for subtraction
when he said, ” I
must be willing to give up what
I am in order
to become what
I will be.” This
higher math calls for an approach
anathema
to all who shun
uncertainty.
JDG
Out where I live, we prepared as
best we could for
savage winds, downed
power lines, high
water and fallen trees. We came
through unscathed but
when we think of
others not so
fortunate, grief and gratitude
intertwine for
we know things could
have been reversed.
JDG
Today, as we were driving to school, two of my granddaughters and I began composing a joint poem. I began with the first line, ” May each of us remove one stone,” and then the wrangling about what should follow began. Sami, who was serving as transcriber, finally became exasperated and wrote:
Every five seconds an editation
is leading me to great frustration.
I hope this will finally come to an end
and I can soon put down my pen.
We decided to invite you, the reader, to weigh in with your suggested follow-up to “May each of us remove one stone…” and see where that will take us. We’re looking forward to hearing from you.
JDG
For a moment I thought the sign
on the back of
the van ahead
said, “How is my
driving? My mother’s number is … “
This led me to
ponder the many
tasks a mother
has. Even when her kids are grown
and gone, it seems
a mother’s work
is never done.
~JDG
Out on the lawn the fairies dance
not in squares but
rings. They circle
in and out and
all about the tiny, white-capped
stalks. There they’re joined
in revelry
by others of
their kind, but we are warned to stand
apart lest we
get snared and dance
our lives away.
JDG
Apparently the word went out
and a critter
council was held,
as it often
is, in the early morning haze.
Crows, woodpeckers
and jays chimed in,
frogs opined, bees
buzzed, dogs barked, and even the cows
agreed – it was
time for the sun
to fully shine.
JDG
Sometimes we have to grow into
the words we read.
I remember
puzzling over
Faulkner’s words and asked my teacher
how there could be
such a thing as
victory through
surrender. He paused before he
said, softly, “In
time you will come
to understand.“
JDG
Sunday in the insight meditation practice group facilitated by my friends, Kay and Phil Davidson, Kay read a passage from Mark Nepo’s THE BOOK OF AWAKENING in which he says that each of us is born with an unencumbered spot of grace which, in the normal course of things, gets tarnished or covered over. Occasionally the covering gets worn through and we and others get a glimpse of “that uncorruptible spot of grace at our core.” He goes on to say,”When the covering is worn through, we have moments of enlightenment, moments of wholeness, moments of satori…moments of clear living when inner meets outer, moments of full integrity of being, moments of complete Oneness. And whether the film is a veil of culture, of memory, of mental or religious training, of trauma or sophistication, the removal of that film is the goal of all therapy and education.”
Recently I was fortunate to be in the presence of that unencumbered spot of grace as I witnessed an exchange between two of my granddaughters which I wrote about in my January 31 posting, “Two Poems, One Heart”. Mark Nepo gave words to what I saw embodied for a moment by these two young girls and reminded me that each of us, at our core, has that same unencumbered, uncorruptible spot of grace. In that moment I was given a tangible experience of what is meant by “namaste” when “the divine in me bows to the divine in you”.
On our vast world, the limitless
has placed limits.
The hairs on our
head and our days
are numbered. We can learn to count
and to be held
accountable
in many ways.
The Seven Noble Truths and the
Ten Commandments
are among prime
numerators.
JDG
